Hospital Inpatient Resuscitation Systems of Care

Up to one-third or more of inpatient cardiac arrest deaths may be avoidable, either through arrest prevention efforts or via improved resuscitative measures. Unfortunately, hospitals have struggled to implement effective programs that reduce the incidence of cardiac arrest, and inpatient arrest survival rates have been relatively stagnant for decades. Based on a recent Society of Hospital Medicine survey, most hospitals use biennial life support training as their sole source for maintaining resuscitation competency among their providers. This is too infrequent and doesn’t address the unique hospital-based resources and technology that could contribute to arrest outcomes. In addition, many hospitals don’t even maintain a dedicated committee to review cardiac arrest performance. Finally, traditional life support training doesn’t incorporate arrest prevention, which is a unique opportunity in the inpatient environment. Hospitals should develop a system of care for resuscitation that includes the following critical elements: A multidisciplinary committee responsible for cardiac arrest outcomes, including both incidence and survival. This group should have access to clinical outcomes and process data, and should have influence over training and other interventions to address identified opportunities for improvement Data collection, which should include both arrest incidence and survival, as well as process measures that quantify the response and resuscitation performance. T...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Cardiac & Resuscitation Top Story Exclusive Articles Patient Care Heart of America Source Type: news